SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
Washington Forum] excoriating for- profit postsecondary education. As chairman of the Senate Health, Educa- tion, Labor and Pensions Committee, Harkin should be taking a broader view of the challenges facing U.S. high- er education. This includes consider- ing how to achieve President Obama’s goal of America having the highest col- lege graduation rate in the world by 2020; Harkin should be among those leading a national dialogue on how to improve college access for all students —especially those most in need. Five years ago, as secretary of educa- tion, I appointed a bipartisan Commis- sion on the Future of Higher Educa- tion and charged it with crafting a plan to address the critical issues of ac- cessibility, affordability and account- ability. The commission heard from dozens of experts and many members of the public and then offered bold rec- ommendations to dramatically im- prove access to college and raise col- lege completion rates for millions of Americans. I embraced the proposals, which in- cluded calls for increased aid for low- income students, robust accountabil- ity and transparency at institutions, and a renewed focus on innovation and quality. I worked to advance these ideas with policymakers and leaders in higher education. For the most part, the higher educa- tion establishment balked, actively working to get Congress to affirm the status quo. Lawmakers obliged and re- authorized the Higher Education Act, largely dismissing the commission’s work. Ignored to the detriment of stu- dents and families were recommenda- tions to overhaul an outdated accredi- tation system, to develop a results- oriented model of quality assurance that would lead to greater accountabil- ity, to control costs by rewarding in- novation and productivity, and to re- place a byzantine federal financial aid system with one more in line with stu- dents’ needs and national priorities. I was pleased when, in his first ad- dress to Congress, President Obama called for America to once again lead the world in college graduates. He urged Americans to seek out addition- al education or training beyond high school; for Congress to raise Pell Grant levels to help students gain the means to access that higher education; and called for additional support for com- munity colleges. Unfortunately, this good start quick- ly faltered. The Obama administra- tion’s tendency to spend more money and support aggressive government solutions began to get the better of it. First, the administration federalized
KATHLEEN PARKER
Be a fearless leader Q
uestion of the day: Why do presi- dents give the White House keys to Bob Woodward? I ask this with all due defer-
ence, respect, hat in hand, cape over puddle and other sundry gestures owed by ink-stained wretches like me to the Most Famous Journalist on the Planet. Through several administrations,
Woodward has become president ex of- ficio — or at least reporter in chief, a hu- man tape recorder who issues history’s first draft even as history is still tying its shoes. For years he’s been the best-selling
first read on a president’s inner strug- gles. His latest, “Obama’s Wars,” expos- es infighting in the West Wing over how to handle Afghanistan. The suggestion that there was dis- cord in the Oval Office over whether to increase troop numbers in a brutal war theater is, frankly, of great consolation. If we don’t worry ourselves sick about putting lives on the line, what exactly would we concern ourselves with? Who’s dancing next with the stars? What is of some concern — at least based on those excerpts that have leaked thus far — is that the president gets pushed around by the generals. And that impression feeds into the larg- er one that Barack Obama is not quite commander in chief. He seems far more concerned with being politically savvy than with winning what he has called the good war.
Cognitive dissonance sets in when Obama declares that “it’s time to turn the page” in the war that he didn’t like —Iraq — and that is not in fact over. Fif- ty thousand troops remain in Iraq, while the surge in Afghanistan seems to be not enough — or too much for too long, already. Whatever one’s view of circumstanc- es on the ground, whether in the wars abroad or in domestic skirmishes on Wall Street, Obama seems not to be the man in charge. Nor does it seem that he is even sure of his own intentions. One telling exchange reported by Woodward took place with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). In explaining his July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Obama told Gra- ham:
“I have to say that. I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.” How’s that? We tell the enemy when we’re leaving so the party base doesn’t
Making college work T
by Margaret Spellings
his month, Sen. Tom Harkin (D- Iowa) wrote a column [“A better deal on for-profit colleges,”
KLMNO
R
A25 GEORGE F. WILL
student aid programs, eliminating private-sector options for consumers. It also walked away from its commit- ment to community colleges in order to help pay for health-care reform. Now the administration wants to
thwart those in the private sector who are investing capital and spurring in- novation to accommodate students who need more convenient and cre- ative educational opportunities than those offered by traditional schools. Efforts to restrict access to a full range of education providers undermine our shared goals of raising graduation rates and increasing affordability. This doesn’t make sense. At a time when the administration should be fo- cused on job creation and strategies to prepare today’s students for tomor- row’s jobs, it is targeting private-sector higher-education providers that serve about 3 million students a year. The re- sult could be more jobs lost and fewer Americans getting the education they need to secure good jobs. Many for- profit schools are serving those least well-served by traditional higher edu- cation, whose capacity is limited, par- ticularly in tough economic times. It is with low-income and minority stu- dents that our nation is failing. Only 30 percent of African Americans ages 25 to 34, and less than 20 percent of Latinos in that age group, have an as- sociate degree or higher. Students from the highest-income families are almost eight times as likely as those from the lowest-income families to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24. The Education Department’s an- nouncement Friday that it will seek additional information recognizes the unprecedented response to its gainful- employment proposal affecting for- profit colleges. Time will tell whether it is really listening. Rather than add- ing bureaucracy to a regulation-laden industry, the federal government should enforce the rules on the books and weed out those who try, as a recent Government Accountability Office in- vestigation found, to circumvent the law and perpetrate fraud on disadvan- taged students. Rather than targeting a crucial sec-
tor, the administration should take steps to promote innovation so that more students may have affordable ac- cess to higher education. It should support accountability and transpar- ency so that students have a better idea about the value of the education they are buying and should oppose ef- forts to remove educational opportu- nities to which underserved popula- tions are finally being given access.
The writer was U.S. secretary of education from 2005 to 2009. She does consulting work for Education Management Corp., a provider of private postsecondary education, and is a senior adviser to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has members involved in for-profit education.
A better way to pick a president
TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES The Chinese frigate Mianyang steams through the swell near Sydney last week. China’s Caribbean by Robert D. Kaplan
dle East-focused media over the past decade has been the rise of Chinese sea power. This is evinced by President Obama’s meeting Friday about the South China Sea, where China has con- ducted live-fire drills and made territo- rial claims against various Southeast Asian countries, and the dispute over the Senkaku Islands between Japan and China in the East China Sea, the site of a recent collision between a Chi- nese fishing trawler and two Japanese coast guard ships.
T
Whereas an island nation such as Britain goes to sea as a matter of course, a continental nation with long and contentious land borders, such as China, goes to sea as a luxury. The last time China went to sea in the manner that it is doing was in the early 15th centu- ry, when the Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng He sailed his fleets as far as the Horn of Africa. His journeys around the southern Eur- asian rim ended when the Ming emper- ors became distracted by their land campaigns against the Mongols to the north. Despite occasional unrest among the Muslim Uighur Turks in western China, history is not likely to repeat itself. If anything, the forces of Chinese demography and corporate control are extending Chinese power beyond the country’s dry-land frontiers — into Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. China has the world’s second-largest
get upset? Well, of course, public opin- ion matters in war, as in all things. As we’ve seen before, wars can’t be won without the will of the people at home. But a commander in chief at least ought to know what he’s fighting for and why he’s asking Americans to risk their lives. If it’s not a good enough reason to war- rant victory, then maybe it isn’t any lon- ger a good war. In another telling anecdote, the president asked his aides for a plan “about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan.” Apparently, he didn’t get such a plan. Whose presi- dency is this anyway? The White House reportedly isn’t up-
set with the way the president comes across. His portrayal is consistent with what they consider a positive profile: Obama as thoughtful and reflective. To the list might we add ponderous? We all want a thoughtful president.
As few Democrats tire of reminding us, America and the world have had quite enough of cowboys. But surely we can discard the caricatures and settle on a thoughtful commander who is neither a gunslinger nor a chalk-dusted har- rumpher. Surely the twain can meet. The Woodward Syndrome, mean- while, presents a dilemma for all presi- dents. By his presence, events are af- fected. By our knowledge of what he witnesses, even as history is being cre- ated in real time, we can also affect these same events. Is it fair to Obama to critique him as he navigates his own thoughts? Or are we interfering with outcomes by inserting ourselves into conversations to which we were never supposed to be privy? It’s a conundrum unlikely to be re- solved. If anything, in our tell-all, see- all political culture, no struggle will go unrecorded or un-critiqued. The need for strong leadership is, therefore, all the more necessary. There’s a saying that seems applica- ble here: Work like you don’t need mon- ey, love like you’re never been hurt, dance like no one’s watching. Note to President Obama: Lead like
there’s no tomorrow. No midterm elec- tion, no presidential reelection, no par- ty base. Liberate yourself from the Woodward Syndrome, figure out what you think, and lead. You are commander in chief, after all.
Half the country may disagree with you, but they’ll respect you in the morning.
kathleenparker@washpost.com
naval service, after only the United States. Rather than purchase warships across the board, it is developing niche capacities in sub-surface warfare and missile technology designed to hit moving targets at sea. At some point, the U.S. Navy is likely to be denied un- impeded access to the waters off East Asia. China’s 66 submarines constitute roughly twice as many warships as the entire British Royal Navy. If China ex- pands its submarine fleet to 78 by 2020 as planned, it would be on par with the U.S. Navy’s undersea fleet in quantity, if not in quality. If our economy remains wobbly while China’s continues to rise — China’s defense budget is growing nearly 10 percent annually — this will have repercussions for each nation’s sea power. And with 90 percent of com- mercial goods worldwide still trans- ported by ship, sea control is critical. The geographical heart of America’s hard-power competition with China will be the South China Sea, through which passes a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeast- ern China. That sea grants Beijing ac- cess to the Indian Ocean via the Strait of Malacca, and thus to the entire arc of Islam, from East Africa to Southeast Asia. The United States and others con- sider the South China Sea an interna- tional waterway; China considers it a “core interest.” Much like when the Panama Canal was being dug, and the
he greatest geopolitical devel- opment that has occurred large- ly beneath the radar of our Mid-
United States sought domination of the Caribbean to be the preeminent power in the Western Hemisphere, China seeks domination of the South China Sea to be the dominant power in much of the Eastern Hemisphere. We underestimate the importance of
While we’re bogged down in Afghanistan, look what’s happening in the South China Sea.
what is occurring between China and Taiwan, at the northern end of the South China Sea. With 270 flights per week between the countries, and hun- dreds of missiles on the mainland tar- geting the island, China is quietly in- corporating Taiwan into its dominion. Once it becomes clear, a few years or a decade hence, that the United States cannot credibly defend Taiwan, China will be able to redirect its naval ener- gies beyond the first island chain in the Pacific (from Japan south to Australia) to the second island chain (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and in the opposite direction, to the Indian Ocean. To wit, China is building a blue water navy, even as it is helping to fund and construct ports in Burma, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and Pakistan. The Chinese will not have naval bases in these coun- tries: India would find that far too pro- vocative, and the Chinese are taking pains so others see their rise as peace- ful and non-hegemonic. Rather, these harbors will be visited by Chinese war- ships and will provide warehousing for Chinese consumer goods destined for the Middle East. China is building a far-flung trading network, ultimately to be protected by its warships — the British Empire refitted for a 21st-cen- tury era of globalization. America’s preoccupation with the
Middle East suits China perfectly. We are paying in blood and treasure to stabilize Afghanistan while China is building transport and pipeline net- works throughout Central Asia that will ultimately reach Kabul and the trillion dollars’ worth of minerals lying underground. Whereas Americans ask how can we escape Afghanistan, the Chinese, who are already prospecting for copper there, ask: How can we stay? Our military mission in Afghanistan diverts us from properly reacting to the Chinese naval challenge in East Asia. The United States should not consid-
er China an enemy. But neither is it in our interest to be distracted while a Chinese economic empire takes shape across Eurasia. This budding empire is being built on our backs: the protec- tion of the sea lines of communication by the U.S. Navy and the pacification of Afghanistan by U.S. ground troops. It is through such asymmetry — we pay far more to maintain what we have than it costs the Chinese to replace us — that great powers rise and fall. That is why the degree to which the United States can shift its focus from the Middle East to East Asia will say much about our fu- ture prospects as a great power.
Robert D. Kaplan is the author of “Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.” He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine.
lthough a Niagara of vitriol is drenching politics, the two par- ties are acting sensibly and in tandem about something once consid- ered a matter of constitutional signifi- cance — the process by which presi- dential nominations are won. The 2012 process will begin 17 months from now — in February rather than January. Under rules adopted by both parties’ national committees, no delegates to the national conventions shall be selected before the first Tues- day in March — except for delegates from New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Iowa may still conduct its caucuses, which do not select del- egates, in February. It is not graven on the heart of man by the finger of God that the Entitled Four shall go first, but it might as well be. Although they have just 3.8 percent of the nation’s population, they do rep- resent four regions. Anyway, they shall have the spotlight to themselves until the deluge of delegate selections begin — perhaps in March but preferably in April. Any Republican delegate-selection
A
event held before the first day of April shall be penalized: The result cannot be, as many Republicans prefer, a winner-take-all allocation of delegates. March events “shall provide for the al- location of delegates on a proportional basis.” This means only that some of the delegates must be allocated propor- tional to the total vote. Because Democrats are severe demo-
crats, they have no winner-take-all events, so they do not have this stick with which to discipline disobedient states. Instead, they brandish — they are, after all, liberals — a carrot: States will be offered bonus delegates for moving their nominating events deep- er into the nominating season, and for clustering their contests with those of neighboring states. Each party wants to maximize its chance of nominating a strong candi- date and — this is sometimes an after- thought — one who would not embar- rass it as president. So both parties have equal interests in lengthening the nominating process to reduce the like- lihood that a cascade of early victories will settle nomination contests before they have performed their proper testing-and-winnowing function. With states jockeying for early posi- tions, the danger has been that the process will become compressed into something similar to an early national primary. This would heavily favor well- known and well-funded candidates and would virtually exclude everyone else. There have been other proposals. One would divide the nation into four regions voting on monthly intervals, with the order of voting rotating every four years. Another would spread vot- ing over 10 two-week intervals, with the largest states voting last, thereby giving lesser-known candidates a chance to build strength. Such plans, however, require cooper-
ation approaching altruism among the states, which should not be counted on. Instead, the two parties are in a Madi- sonian mood, understanding that in- centives are more reliable than moral exhortations in changing behavior. Speaking of the sainted Madison, the
parties’ reforms are a small step back toward what the Constitution envi- sioned: settled rules for something im- portant. The nation’s Founders consid- ered the selection of presidential candi- dates so crucial that they wanted the process to be controlled by the Consti- tution. So they devised a system under which the nomination of presidential candidates and the election of a presi- dent occurred simultaneously: Electors meeting in their respective
POST PARTISAN
Excerpts from The Post’s opinion blog, updated daily at
washingtonpost.com/postpartisan
RICHARD COHEN
Ignoring schools’ real problem
I began my life in journalism as an edu-
cation reporter, and one day, in a Washing- ton high school years ago, I learned from teachers that on a given day only 25 per- cent of their students showed up. The prin- cipal’s attendance reports, however, put the figure at pretty close to 100 percent. So I don’t need the acclaimed new documen- tary “Waiting for Superman” to tell me that this nation’s schools, particularly the big- city ones, are an unforgivable mess — a monstrous lie. I’ve seen the reports. This film — so well-intended it is virtu- ally criticism-proof — didn’t enthrall me. Its overall message that too many schools stink and that the teachers unions with their anachronistic work rules — partic- ularly tenure — are an impediment to edu- cation cannot be news. In Washington and New York, two high-profile school chiefs — Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, respectively
— have fought to have teachers serve the kids instead of themselves and a bullet- proof form of job security. (Try firing an in- competent teacher.) In both cities, the unions have made some important conces- sions. “Waiting for Superman” focuses on five hardworking kids, all of them desperately seeking precious slots in non-union char- ter schools. Their parents prod them to do better. You want these kids to do well. But the major problem is off-camera.
Why hasn’t every kid in Washington ap- plied to a charter school? Where are they? The answer is they probably don’t know anything about it because their parents (more likely, parent) are unaware and pos- sibly uninterested. These kids are the ma- jor challenge, the major problem and, too often, the major menace. Nothing about them in this film, though. Neither teachers unions nor lack of
money are what really ail this country’s schools. It is indifferent, lousy parents — parents who somehow never fail, while in the dopey lexicon we’ve all adopted, schools can and teachers can and princi- pals can. Never parents, though.
states, in numbers equal to their states’ senators and representatives, would vote for two candidates for president. When Congress counted the votes, the one with the most would become presi- dent, the runner-up vice president. This did not survive the quick emer-
gence of parties. After the presidential election of 1800, which was settled in the House after 36 votes, the 12th Amendment was adopted, and sudden- ly the nation had what it has had ever since — a process of paramount impor- tance but without settled rules. The process has been a political version of the “tragedy of the commons” — by everyone acting self-interestedly, everyone’s interests are injured. In 1952, Sen. Estes Kefauver of Ten-
nessee won every Democratic primary he entered except Florida’s, which was won by Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia. So the nominee was . . . Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson. Party bosses, a species as dead as the dinosaurs, disliked Kefauver. Today, the parties’ modest reforms — the best kind — have somewhat re- duced the risks inherent in thorough democratization of the nomination process. Certainly the democratization has not correlated with dramatic im- provements in the caliber of nominees. And the current president, whose cam- paign was his qualification for the of- fice, is proof that even a protracted and shrewd campaign is not an infallible predictor of skillful governance.
georgewill@washpost.com
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